War Story

KRON local Emmy Award winning news report from 1987, produced by Craig Frankin and Vic Lee, which examines the treatment of Japanese Americans by the U.S. government during World War II. Narrator Vic Lee places this report in the wider context of a 1987 Congressional debate about whether to approve a landmark bill formally apologizing for the internment of Japanese Americans from 1942-45. Fred Korematsu and K. Morgan Yamanaka, who were both sent to internment camps, describe their experiences after being labelled as 'enemy aliens' by the U.S. government and their respective struggles to redress this injustice following the war. Also features an interview with Ernest Besig of the American Civil Liberties Union and a review of how in November 1983, Korematsu's original 1942 conviction under the authority of Excecutive Order 9066 was overturned. Ends with Yamanaka arguing that: "Another issue could come about so that another group of people could end up behind a concentration camp ... unless the whole American structure is made to feel this is wrong." The Civil Liberties Act was passed one year after this report in August 1988 and granted reparations to Japanese Americans who were interned by the U.S. government during World War II.